View of Ankor Wat

Sometime around September 2007 I was invited to a meeting in Cambodia. I recall that I’d been travelling a lot and had just returned from somewhere distant. I wasn’t even sure if I was the right person to attend this meeting. So I didn’t really want to go. It’s a long way from NY to Cambodia and I had been finding that as I got older the travel got more and more difficult. Then I realized that the meeting was in Siem Riep, about six kilometers from Angkor Wat. I’d seem pictures of Angkor Wat when I was in my teens and was fascinated. I’ve always had an interest in archaeology. Little did I ever think that I would have chance to see it. It seemed too good an opportunity to miss. So I went to the meeting, which turned out to be really useful – I was, indeed, the right person to attend. Even better my wife decided that she hadn’t been back to Asia for a while and went to Bangkok for a few days and then met up with me after the meeting in Siem Riep. We then had a very pleasant couple of days vacation taking in the sights and visiting Angkok Thom, Angkok Wat and some of the other complexes. Very memorable.


Carving. Angkor Thom


Stone heads. Bayon Temple


Staircase. Angkor Wat. I didn’t have the nerve to climb it.


Carving. Banteay Srei (I think)


Banteay Srei


Girl with dog. Got the exposure wrong on this one and it came out very dark. Not the sharpest of pictures (the original was very noisy). The funny thing is that I was so focused on the face that I didn’t even see the dog until I came to work on the picture again many years later.

All pictures taken with a Canon Powershot S50

Before anyone gets the wrong impression I’m not trying to hike the full (2,200 mile) length of the Appalachian Trail – from Georgia to Maine.  However, the trail passes by quite close (an eight minute car ride) to where we live . Since I’m always on the lookout for new places to walk the dog I thought I’d give it a try.

Although I didn’t know it at the time the very first section of the trail started in New York: from the Bear Mountain Bridge through Harriman State Park  – also quite close (maybe 15 minutes away). Bill Bryson’s book: A Walk in the Woods is a good read about the Appalachian Trail.  It was a really pleasant day – partly cloudy and quite cool and we walked for about two hours.

The trail crosses Route 301 near the west end of Canopus Lake. Look for the trail markers

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Sitting on the train going into the city can be quite boring. I didn’t feel like reading and just gazing out of the window didn’t seem to be much of an option. Then it occurred to me that I’d never had much luck taking pictures from the train. What could I do to try to improve? I had my NEX 5n with me and I was trying out a manual focus Jupiter 8 lens – A copy of the pre World War II Zeiss Sonnar I believe.

Why do I have problems shooting from a train? I usually use autofocus lenses and for exposure it’s usually aperture priority leaving the camera to choose the shutter speed. So what’s going wrong. First I’m shooting through the train window and autofocus can be fooled when shooting through glass – the lens focuses on the glass rather than on the object beyond the glass. Second using aperture priority mode the camera can choose a shutter speed, which is too long to stop the motion caused by the moving train.

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